A life collecting golden oldies
When former Newton elementary school teacher Sharon Kleitman and her MIT professor husband, Daniel, set out to furnish their Commonwealth Avenue apartment 30 years ago, they quickly learned that auctions were the best way to find unique goods at a great price. They also discovered that they loved the process as much as their finds, and were hooked.
"We began accumulating a lot of things at the auctions and people would ask, 'Where's your shop?' Of course we didn't have one," said Kleitman.
In 1969, the couple bought an 1840s farmhouse in Hollis, Maine, to spend their summers. By the following year, they had opened Sharon's Shed Antiques, which began in the shed, then flowed into their barn, which ultimately had a second floor built above it.
It was only the beginning.
Kleitman, 68, holds a bachelor's degree in art history from Brandeis University, and says she has always been drawn to the more unusual items. She said that years ago, 75 percent of her customers were other shop owners.
"The antique dealers from the fancy Maine towns would come to me," said Kleitman. "Everything was cheap to them, because I wasn't as knowledgeable, but I obviously had good taste."
In 1990, Kleitman got a call from a fellow antiques dealer who tipped her off to an available storefront on Washington Street in Newton. She took the spot and ran her business, the Antique Shop, there until 1996, and later moved the shop to its current location on Watertown Street.
The Kleitmans, now married for 43 years, can often be found in the front row at auctions around New England.
"This is what we do together," Kleitman said. "Danny does the books for the business and a lot of the research, which he finds fascinating. But he trusts my taste. We're a good combination."
Jim Cyr, owner of the Cyr Auction Co. in Gray, Maine, says the Kleitmans are brilliant because they understand a wide variety of merchandise, which allows them to work through the slow periods with effectiveness.
"They'll be as apt to buy a wonderful piece of 20th-century pottery as a 17th-century religious object or ethnographic pieces from Africa or the South Pacific," said Cyr, who has watched them in action for 15 years. "Sharon's a very eclectic buyer."
She also works with private traders from Africa and Afghanistan, and has established personal connections in the area since moving to Newton in 1964.
"If someone's parent or aunt dies, or they inherit something that they don't want, they often find their way to me," said Kleitman.
Jody Thrasher is a real estate agent who sells items at the Antique Shop, acting as a silent partner. She said that she's learned a lot about the business over the years from Kleitman, including always carry a magnifying lens; how to look for impurities in a stone; and how to find scratches in an object that you normally might not think about. "I do this for my mental health," said Thrasher, who travels to Europe to buy antiques.
Thrasher recalled one of Kleitman's finds during an excursion to Brimfield, an antiques mecca in Central Massachusetts, a few years back: a very interestingly shaped spoon that was marked silver, but was black with tarnish. Knowing Thrasher liked Scandinavian silver, Kleitman pointed out the piece to her, which she bought for $20.
"It happened to have been a very important Archibald Knox spoon done for Liberty of London," said Thrasher. "It was a royal commemorative spoon for the king of England, and I sold it for $500."
Currently inhabiting the Watertown Street shop are African antiques; oil paintings (some by listed artists); Victorian arts and crafts pottery; ornate silver plates and Victorian serving pieces; Oriental rugs; quilts; African art; and jewelry, some of which Kleitman makes herself from antique beads.
Kleitman said that the Internet has been both a positive and negative force in the antiques business. Items that were once thought hard-to-find are now popping up with the click of a mouse, cutting down the number of day-trippers who used to search shops for a particular place setting. But in some cases, big values can be discovered.
For example, when a Kleitman friend asked her to sell a black beaded poodle purse from the 1950s, the first offer was for $75. Kleitman then went on
"When the auction was finished, it was at $1,180," said Kleitman. She said she contacted the bidders, which was allowed back then, and sold her friend's purse for $1,400.
Kleitman first became interested in antiques soon after graduating from college. She'd rented a cottage in Ogunquit, Maine, and worked as a chambermaid for $2 an hour. Every Saturday night, she and a friend went to a local auction, never spending more that $4 on any one item. "The auctions were so much fun," said Kleitman. "I was hooked."
When the summer of 1961 ended, she spent a year traveling around the world with a friend, first taking a boat to Holland, then hitchhiking through Europe. Eventually they took a boat from Cypress to Israel, and stayed with friends on a kibbutz for five months. Back in the United States, Kleitman went to the University of Chicago for graduate school, then taught elementary school in Newton for a few years until she began raising a family.
Kleitman recalls a day years ago when she told her husband about a beautiful hand-painted papier-mache pencil box from the 18th century that she'd seen on Brattle Street in Cambridge.
"He went over there, and with his myopic eyes read the newspaper print on the papier-mache and found a date from the 1800s," said Kleitman. "When he showed the shop owner that it was from the 19th century, not 18th, the price was lowered, and he bought it for me. It was probably one of the most romantic things that he'd ever done."
To suggest a subject for the People column, e-mail Lebovits@globe.com. 